


Two Ghosts

by greenconverses



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 03:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11176071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenconverses/pseuds/greenconverses
Summary: Percy’s not asleep, exactly, when his bedroom window starts to rattle in the late hours of the night.





	Two Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Old tumblr fic I'm getting my butt around to posting. Prompt was, "Kiss me quick!"

Percy’s not asleep, exactly, when his bedroom window starts to rattle in the late hours of the night.

He’s been in bed for hours – eyes closed, breathing even, body still, but it’s not like used to be, before the fall. He drifts in the shallows of slumber, often pulled back into vague wakefulness by muffled sirens and cars below, and music and television chatter drifting from the apartments above.

The clatter at the window has Percy grasping under his pillow for Riptide before he even really registers the sound, the movement all instinct. His hand closes around the pen as the window slides up, flooding his room and nerves with the heat and noise of the night city. His heart thrums with anticipation and he rolls over, cracking his eyes open –

“It’s just me,” Annabeth whispers, swinging her leg over the windowsill and on to the top of his desk. “Sorry.”

Percy leans back against his headboard, heaving a breath in relief and relaxing his grip on Riptide. Not monster, not a god asking for a favor or even a bland mortal thief – just Annabeth, like it always is. Someday, maybe, the paranoia will go away. He doubts it’ll be any time soon.

Annabeth ducks in all the way and slides off his desk, sending pens scattering to the floor. She tosses her crumpled Yankees cap on the surface of the desk and reaches back to pull the window shut again.

“You could have come in the front door,” he grumbles as she toes her shoes off next to his bed and reaches to unbutton her jeans. He swallows, blood starting to rushing south, and his next words come out in a rasp. “You have a key.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” she replies, shimmying her jeans down her legs. It’s a teasing line, one she’s expected to say, but her voice is flat and heavy with an exhaustion Percy recognizes. “Besides, I didn’t want to wake anyone.”

“You woke _me_ up.”

Annabeth snorts, kicking her jeans aside, and pulls her shirt over her head. “You don’t count.”

“If you say so.”

Percy drops the pen off the side of the bed and opens his arms to her as she crawls in, bracketing her legs over his hips. Annabeth rises on her knees, so she’s just slightly taller than him, and cups his face in her hands, stroking her fingers gently down his jaw. Her hands are trembling as her eyes trace over his face; Percy wonders if she’s noticed, if she even cares about displaying her vulnerability now that she’s with him. 

“Nightmare?” he murmurs, skimming his hands up her sides, fingertips tracing scars, pausing at the lace band of her bra. She nods almost imperceptibly, her gaze locked on his face. “What do you need from me?”

She gently tilts his chin upward. The moonlight streaming from the window casts her curls in white gold and outlines her face with an ethereal, melancholy glow that makes Percy’s heart ache.

“I need you to kiss me. Kiss me, quick,” Annabeth breathes, “And I’ll be okay.”

He’s not going to ask what sort of nightmare drove Annabeth to him tonight or about how bad it must’ve been for her to cross the city in the midnight dark. Even the bare hint of her out there alone, without _him_ at her back, makes his chest tighten with anxiety. Thinking about it awakens something in him he doesn’t like; something that craves _control_ in its protectiveness, something dangerous in its primal strength.

Right now, picking at her trauma won’t stop the tremors in her limbs or cause the anxious, faraway look in her eyes fade. Percy knows how to bring her back, how to help them both through this.

He focuses on Annabeth as she is here now, pressed against him. All those familiar details he’s taken the time to memorize: the warmth of her body under his hands — safe and whole; the soothing lemon-vanilla scent of her hair; the jump of her pulse under his lips as he presses a kiss against the hollow of her throat; the curl of her fingers against his scalp as he moves upward, tasting her skin.

Annabeth’s fingers have stopped trembling by the time he presses his lips to the corner of her mouth.


End file.
